In celebrating 350 years of a covenantal relationship,
We remember our ancestors in faith who came before us, Those who had vision and bravery
To travel from their homelands,
Fleeing persecution and injustice in England,
Risking it all because God called them someplace new,

We remember the puritans, the pilgrims, The farmers, the preachers,The caretakers, the child-rearers, those With hope and fear, those who lost family members along the way, We celebrate you, our ancestors in faith,Who were brave and bold.We give you great thanks for building a foundation that would last.

Pause to prayDear God, we are so grateful for those with brave vision, who risked everything for the building of a new world, those filled with hopes, dreams, and desperation. We pray for those ancestors in faith who started it all and we honor them. As a country built on immigrants, we pray for their spirit to guide and inspire us, as people this very day seek to cross boarders into this country. May the spirit of our ancestors inspire us to create safety and welcome from people immigrating to this country today. Spirit of our ancestors in faith, we honor you, we thank you, we send you love and gratitude for this firm foundation we stand on.

We also remember that as our ancestors in faith traveled to a new land, while new to them, this land was already home to communities and families.

We remember the indigenous people who lived here, People from the Algonquin, Pequot & Wangunk communities, Who cared for this land before our ancestors arrived.

We remember that before this land
was called Middletown,
it was called Mattabesett, meaning “bend in the river.”

We remember that not peace,but conflict, forcible relocation and violence occurred with this meeting.

We acknowledge the physical and structural genocides that destroyed and continue to marginalize
Native communities
And our own church’s complicit role in these efforts.

Pause to prayHoly one, we seek to heal the wounds inflicted by our ancestors of faith for the conflict, displacement, and violence done to the indigenous people already here in Mattabesett. Spirit of the land, spirit of the indigenous communities, we pray to you and honor you. We seek to heal the sins of our ancestors and this nation. Guide us, we pray, in right paths, that honor all persons, that resist evil and oppression. Save us from perpetuating such harm today and from passing it on to future generations. Help us heal ourselves and our ancestors through our justice-seeking actions today.

We remember our ancestors in faith
who sought to build an economy that would sustain them,

Who wished well for their families,Yet destroyed other families in turnAs this country trafficked and enslaved People from Africa and the Caribbean Creating a system of violence and oppression That still exists to this day.

We remember those human beings Who our ancestors in faith enslaved:

As children of GodWho were kidnapped from their homelands, Dehumanized and forced to build this country, Treated beneath their divine worth.

Pause to pray

Spirits of those who were enslaved and wronged by our ancestors in faith, we acknowledge your hurt and we honor you. We know our faith ancestors fled persecution, yet persecuted others in turn. Those who sought salvation manipulated scripture to marginalize and even kill people of color, failing to see that those they oppressed were also children of God. We seek to heal the sins of our ancestors and this nation. Guide us, we pray, in right paths, that honor all persons, that resist evil and oppression. Save us from perpetuating such harm today and from passing it on to future generations. Help us heal ourselves and our ancestors through our justice-seeking actions today.

PRAYER FOR HEALING

Spirit of the living God, We, the present congregation, know that we the living, Have the power to become healers.Help us see that even though we are not our ancestors, We have nevertheless inherited their legacy. We seek to transform the wounds of the pastAs we walk along God’s path of justice and love.We humble ourselves before your call, oh God,To hold ourselves accountableTo the highest standards of justice.Holy one, we ask for your guidance as we seek to transform The imprint of violence against people of color,The original sins of this nation and church.Please help us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus,The path of loving one another,So we may transform the violence buried within each of us And in our world.Help us ensure that all beingsMay connect with their own and each other’s divine essence And touch true liberation.For healing and transformationin the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

]]>http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/uncategorized/350th-healing-ritual/feed/01061Dr. John D. Caputo “Weakness of God”http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/uncategorized/dr-john-d-caputo-weakness-of-god/
http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/uncategorized/dr-john-d-caputo-weakness-of-god/#respondSun, 04 Nov 2018 10:00:17 +0000http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/?p=1057I want to thank Reverend Julia for inviting me here to preach in this special church on this very special occasion. It’s a great personal pleasure to be here because Julia is the daughter of one of my first graduate students and oldest friends, with whom I share a love of philosophy, baseball and south Jersey beaches. And it is a very great honor to be part of this exceptional moment, the 350th anniversary – which, if my Latin holds up, is its “trecento-quinquagintal anniversary” – of this historic “First Church of Middletown,” and of its commitment to being an “ONA,” an “open and affirming Church,” which welcomes everyone into the full life of its community. That open hand of radical hospitality, as opposed to the closed fist of the radical hostility all around us today, is the deepest and most venerable of all the Biblical virtues, and nowadays it is the most endangered. It’s the “reign of God” in the NT in a nutshell!

Reverend Julia gave a sermon just about a year ago today on the Feast of Christ the King, which takes place 3 weeks from now just before advent. So the Church puts the feast of a great King right before the season in which a little baby is born: Are we preparing for the birth of a great King – or of a little baby? Of course it’s both, it’s a child-King, but the trick is to see how. Do we mean that this little baby is going to grow up to be the King, which is not a paradox – or do we mean that we will be led by a child?

Reverend Julia quotes Delores Williams, a distinguished “womanist” theologian, who is speaking about growing up in the south in the 1940s.

The dilemma is that advent marks the coming of a child who bears the mark of God. The child has a special power over us, not the power of bruteforce, of course, but rather what I will call here the power of a “weak force.” The child is weak in force but strong in true power. We do not want to give up on power, on the basileia, the “rule” or “reign” of God, which means what the world would look like if God ruled, not the powers and principalities, which is the reign of force. We want hospitality to be stronger, more powerful, than hostility. We don’t want to be weak about true power. So this child emblematizes for us the divinity of true power, the power of the truly divine, from the profanity of mere force. The mark of the divine, the mark of God, of the true power of God, of what is going on in the name of God, is found in what for all the world is weakness, in what St. Paul calls the weakness of God. The weakness of God, I think, is the hallmark of the story of Jesus. It is the decisively, characteristically Jesus-thing – from the first time he appears to us as a baby in the infancy narratives, throughout his life, in his teachings, and finally even in his death, the whole course of his life, which we honor throughout the liturgical cycle.

In today’s epistle, St. Paul wrote:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength…But God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not (ta me onta), to reduce to nothing the things that are (ta onta).

The gospels paint a striking portrait of Jesus full of amazing reversals like this that make the Kingdom of God look like Alice in Wonderland, like a divine topsy-turvy. Luther said that the revelation that occurs in the New Testament is made sub specie contraria, under the appearance of the opposite, where what is foolish is wise and what is weak is strong. Jesus said his mission meant good news to the poor and the imprisoned, namely, the very sort of people Paul here calls “ta me onta,” the non-beings, the “nothings and nobodies,” a word that would have made any Greek philosopher who heard it faint dead away, which is evidently what Paul was trying to do. Paul was getting in the face of the Greek philosophers in Corinth. Jesus mixes among the lowest and most despised social stratum in an obscure corner of a vast empire. He took the side of sinners—but we should remember that these “sinners” were at least as much sinned against by the Romans, driven as they were by their poverty into collaboration with the Empire and prostitution. He stood by the woman accused of adultery, not because he stood for adultery, but because he stood against hypocrisy and oppression. He really did not like hypocrisy. He took on the religious authorities of the day fearlessly, calling them out at every turn. So when Delores Williams’ speaks of “poor little Mary’s boy” we should take that seriously, desperately poor people living on the edge, living from day to day, praying very literally for their “daily bread.”

Still, Christians are not just saying that Jesus was a great man, a courageous truth-teller, and a martyr for the truth. We already have Socrates for that. The distinctly Christian claim is that apart from his human qualities, there is something qualitatively different about Jesus, the qualitative difference between the human and divine. The Christian claim is that in Jesus we are given an intuition of the divine – “Who Do You Say God is? – that Jesus is an ikon of the invisible God. An ikon is not an idol. With an idol, our gaze only gets as far as the sensible thing and we are distracted by its beauty or glamour; we are stopped by its sparkle, we luxuriate in its splendor. Or we are distracted by its ugliness, the abjection, the sign of rejection – of a public execution, which was Saul/Paul’s first reaction. But an ikon has no splendor to distract us, no glamour to bedazzle us; our gaze continues on past it to what it incarnates or announces in an incongruous, even an uncomely form. He was despised among men, an outcast—those are the makings of a perfect ikon.

So what is the qualitative difference made by Jesus? Unlike standard form heroes in antiquity, Jesus does not crush his enemies with his might or lead a mighty army to victory but is instead born in poverty and at the end of his life he is nailed to a tree – arrested, tortured and subjected to a humiliating and particularly cruel public execution. His body is itself one of the me onta that Paul is describing here. If Jesus is the distinctive way that the invisible God is made visible to us, then the God that is thus revealed reverses our expectations: a God not of sovereign power but of weakness, where “the weakness of God” is stronger than human strength, a stunning reversal, a hard saying, very hard to swallow.

If we want to see the figure of God in the ikon which is Jesus, get ready to be turned upside down:

Faced with an armed enemy, he tell us to lay down our sword.

Faced with hatred, he responds with love.

Faced with an offense, he tell us to forgive, up to and including the act of forgiveness that is issued from the cross.

He greets the enemy with a kiss, the uninvited visitor with hospitality.

If there is power here then it is the power of powerlessness, a force without force. Jesus does not lead an army or have an official headquarters. If Christianity dares to follow in his name, in the name of this outsider and outcast, who represents the upside-down reversal of what the world expects, then it has paradox on its hands—of being an institution, which means power, that exists in the name of a power without power.

Who do you say God is?

Forget the top down schema of one Sovereign God in heaven – “God of gods, King of kings, Father Almighty – to rule the land (another father), in favor of a God who dwells among everything that the world despises, not a powerful king but a street person, one of the nothings and nobodies, the me onta, pitching his tent among the shanty towns of the world, with no place on which to lay his head.

Forget the power of God of omnipotence and imagine a more powerless power who confronts the established human order, the human all too human way of doing business, the authority of “man” other men and women and animals and the earth itself, one that confounds human possessiveness and dominion, posing, in short, the contradiction of the “world”?

Suppose “God” stands for an event that scandalizes the upper crusts of power and privilege, not, I hasten to add, in order to level institutions and structures – like the First Church of Middletown – but precisely in order to keep them porous, to open them up, to keep them just, hospitable, to let justice reign?

No wonder Richard Holloway, one of my favorite Anglican theologians, describes the Sermon on the Mount as the most compromised text the western world has ever produced.

How then is a weak God still “God?” I locate the Godhead of God in the “unconditional,” in an unconditional appeal or call or claim that is unconditional but without force or coercive power. The name of God is the name of something that lays claim to us, that draws us out of ourselves and calls upon us, calling us not from on high but from down below, from among the nothings and nobodies, to what is beyond, summoning up what is best in us.

And maybe God/it has other names? Maybe it doesn’t care what name we use?

The “world” in the NT means the “powers and principalities,” the holding sway of the real power of this world, the closed fists, the strong force of the power of the present age, to which is opposed a completely paradoxical and ironic “rule,” the “reign” of a weak force, of call to make the kingdom come true.

The “kingdom” or “rule” of God is a poem to what the world would look like if God ruled, not the world, and Jesus is its poet. “Theology” must weaken into theopoetics and strengthen into theopraxis. If we press the question of exactly what the world look like if God ruled, the answer is found in the poem to the reign of God in Isaiah, 11, which the Church takes to be a pre-figuring of Jesus:

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)

The true power of the Kingdom is not found in a different world but in making the world different, in the qualitative difference we are supposed to make in the world, we who dare assemble in this name. That I think is what the First Church of Middletown has been trying to do for its first 350 years – we’ll hear more about that this afternoon – and our prayer for this church this morning is that it may, in the spirit of this divinely topsy-turvy logic, image the weakness of God with all its strength in the next 350 years!

Truth & Reconciliation November 4, 2018 4pm
Delivered by Rev. Julia Burkey
Written in collaboration with Truth & Reconciliation Team

With all the beauty in this space, there is so much to celebrate. I am so honored that all of you came to this event and I wanted to share with you some significant work going on in the church that I am very excited about.

When we realized the 350th anniversary was coming up, we thought to ourselves, that is a lot of American history to march through….we are proud to inherit this legacy and we are curious about the church’s role in eras of oppression in American history, whose imprint still exist today. A Truth and Reconciliation Team was commissioned by the Executive Committee a year and a half ago to think with us about and research the ways in which our tradition and our church have, at various times in our history, perpetuated harm and oppression. This is a unique way to celebrate, but we believe a vitally important way to truth- tell. Just like when you have a big birthday you think to yourself, who have I been, and who do I want to be? You look at the whole of yourself with love and say, “self, we are rocking it, but we could do better.” It this churches birthday today!

So today, we wish to publicly claim and acknowledge the difficult aspects of our history so that we may move into the future with our eyes wide-open and with greater accountability. We held ritual space for healing the wounds perpetuated by our ancestors in faith this morning, and now we seek the accountability of the wider community.

This statement not to inspire guilt but to empower us all with a sense of responsibility and a recommitment to healing the world. This, in turn, lays a firm foundation for the generations to come.

So hear now the collaboratively written Truth and Reconciliation Statement:

This church is one of the oldest institutions in the United States of America. Founded long before the United States government, congregational churches model democracy. The path of Jesus which seeks to make central the marginalized, the lost, the least, the vulnerable, which seeks to promote an ethic of loving one another, no matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey, is central to how we govern ourselves and how we govern our church. This is the legacy we were just singing about.

This is a legacy I believe our entire congregation is incredibly proud and honored to inherit. We celebrate this today, and we celebrate it through the arts, through worship, through community, with tremendous vitality, hope, and vision.

As we joyfully inherit this legacy, we also recognize that Christian institutions often miss the mark of living these values out in dramatically painful ways. As one of the founding churches in America, we recognize the church’s participation in the original sins of this nation.

We repent America’s original wounding that was and is the murder, erasure and violence done to indigenous communities. We lift up specifically the Wangunk Community, which was forcibly removed from this place, Middletown, which was once known as Mattabesett. We acknowledge the wounds caused by our ancestors in faith against Native people and we commit to make amends for these wrongs.

We also recognize that in the second century of this church’s history, Middletown was one of the largest ports in New England, participating in and benefiting from the enslavement of human beings trafficked from their homelands in Africa and the Caribbean. Their forced labor benefited the economy of Middletown, and therefore the economy of this church. We recognize that this church benefited from the institution of slavery. It is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge the fact that a former pastor of this church, who occupied my very pulpit, held enslaved people, dehumanizing them and benefiting from their free labor.

We mourn and lament this history and the ways First Church has benefitted from the violence against people of color. We repent and commit to making amends for our church’s participation in the institution of slavery and the forcible removal of indigenous communities.

While many of our own blood ancestors were not part of the founding, many of us feel a great sense of responsibility for this institution and its legacy. Even though we as individuals were not part of our ancestors’ mistakes, we have the opportunity — and thus the responsibility — to transform the violent systems we unwillingly inherit. Only by doing this transformative work can true liberation occur. When we realize that not one of us is free, until all of us are free.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. promises, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We commit ourselves to being a part of that bending, and we call on the guidance of God and our community to help us discern the actions we must take to become a pro-racial justice institution. We offer our commitments and amends to the spirits of those who were wronged by our ancestors in faith, and we ask for their guidance and the guidance of their descendants as we walk this path of transformation and healing. We humbly offer this statement as a reflection of where we are now, fully aware that we have a lot of work to do.

So now I move to the blessing of Middletown:

So what can we do? What are the needs of the surrounding community? What do reparations look like? As I mentioned, about a year and a half ago a Truth and Reconciliation team was commissioned, and today they commit to help lead the congregation in becoming a pro-racial justice congregation, specifically because of our churches history. And we need your help, community!

This congregation is in the midst of fundraising for our Vision of creating a sustainable space here, with beautiful space for the arts, with pews cut to become accessible to all, for funding for a youth and families minister, and creating a more equitable world and community. We ask you to join us. We want your help. We want your collaboration and accountability. This church has made commitment to proclaiming safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community, has proclaimed commitment to ecological justice, as taken time to raise awareness around mental health, and we have yet to claim racial justice, but because of our history, the work of racial justice has claimed us, and the time is now.

The truth and reconciliation committee says this:

We commit to healing the wounds caused by our ancestors in faith and recognize the harm caused by this institution. We commit to becoming a justice-centered institution as a way of repairing and healing the wounds generated in our past. We commit to listening to people of color and partnering with local organizations run by people of color so that we may learn from all voices and collaborate to make our community more equitable. We commit to educating ourselves and our community on ways to transform oppression in our own lives. We commit to telling the truth about our history through the lens of justice in order to create a community and an institution that concretely models the messages of justice, love, mercy held at the center of our Christian tradition.

So today, as we recommit ourselves to the best of who we are, as we celebrate the churches radical welcome, as we incorporate the arts, and bring people together, we hold ourselves, our history, and our future accountable for to the healing of these systems that still exist today.

But more than anything, we want your help in blessing the community of Middletown. And for blessings we stand up, so please rise in body or spirit!

I want you to hold in your heart a vision for the world, a vision for this community, a vision for yourself that is planted in you by the divine spark that resides within you. What are your dreams for the world, what are your hopes and visions for this community? Hold them close to you, hold your hands over your heart, and turn your body toward the closest exit, as we bless the world beyond these walls.

Bless, oh spirit of life, spirit of love, spirit of justice, bless the dreams and vision held in the hearts of these people gathered today. May we know deeply that we can do more together than we can do alone. May we know deeply we are each loved, and spread this message of love to all who are lonely, hurting or in despair. May we create together a community that honors all person, a community of justice and love, a community that honors the arts, a community that listens and stays silent when it needs to, a community that comes together in solidarity. We bless the city of Middletown with our commitments and love today. Amen.

Light beamed from Jesus, emanated from his every pour. It looked like he was cloaked in a golden substance, that didn’t quite land on him, but hovered above his body, as he hovered above the earth, on the mountain, that hovered above the valley. The disciples looked up at him, then looked down, and looked up again, and thought, “We are never leaving this place.” THIS is the place, we are building a temple, THIS is the place we are planting a community, a life, THIS is why we have been following this guy Jesus, because look how SHINY and HIGH he is! They caught his glow and thought, “We want to stay here forever.”
Spectacular. This is the transfiguration. Where Jesus’ figure is trans*formed. It’s an odd season to think about transformation and shining, while everything natural around is dormant or dead. There is a traditional Advent or pre-Christmas Hymn we should sing in February instead, “In the bleak mid-winter.” The folk-singer and Wesleyan Graduate Dar Williams sings a song about February,
“The everyday turned solitary,
So we came to February.
First we forgot where we’d planted those bulbs last year,
Then we forgot that we’d planted at all,
Then we forgot what plants are altogether.
The nights were long and cold and scary,
Can we live through February?
And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, “That’s a crocus, ”
And I said, “What’s a crocus?” and you said, “It’s a flower, ”
I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”
You said, “I still love you.”

“There is nothing in nature that blooms all year long. So don’t expect yourself to do so either.” Yet, “Deep roots never doubt spring will come,” says Marty Rubin. The February’s of life, that last into March, come to us, uninvited and squeeze us.
No wonder the disciples want to stay in this glowy place forever. I don’t blame them. They don’t want to experience February. Even in places like the desert, or like LA, where it is sunny and warm all the time, February moments come. Of course February can be filled with moments of beauty, joy, solitude, silence, deep deep meaning. But if can also be filled with depression and seasonal affective disorder and general malaise. We all know those February moments- whether it is a fight with our loved one, acting a way we aren’t proud of, or our team losing the super bowl to the eagles. I am a Steelers fan by the way, who have 6 super bowl championships, to the Patriots 5… but that is neither here nor there. We all can resonate with the disciple’s sentiment; “I want to stay in this shiny glowy place of goodness forever.”
Why must we feel the squeeze of life, what wisdom does this text give us about moving through and beyond February moments? The transfiguration comes at the midpoint of the Gospel of Mark. Geographically, this mountain is likely Mount Hermon, which is the highest peak in Syro-Palistine
The SALT lectionary commentary writes, “The first eight chapters of Mark describe Jesus’ ministry of healing and liberation, and the last eight chapters describe the descent into his passion and death, and ultimately his empty tomb. The Transfiguration stands as the fulcrum, the pivot point between these two great movements in Mark’s symphony.
Just before the transfiguration Jesus explained “that he must suffer, die, and rise again – and that anyone who wishes to follow him must “deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me” (8:34)” “The Transfiguration’s light, then, acts as reassurance for Peter, James, and John (and for the rest of us!). It’s as if Mark is saying: We’re now making the turn toward Golgotha, and that means descending into the valley of the shadow of death. But fear not! Keep this astonishing, mysterious mountaintop story in mind as we go. Carry it like a torch, for it can help show the way – not least because it gives us a glimpse of where all this is headed…” (http://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/2/6/transfiguration-lectionary-commentary-for-epiphany-week-6)
When we find ourselves in the glowing light we think, like Peter, this is how it should be. We want to built our whole lives around these moments. Let us soak in those moments! Right now, remember times you felt loved. Practice joy. Know you are loved and unique and valued. Let this be a glowing light you carry within you. If you need to rest, rest, if you need a break, take a break. Give yourself permission to bask in the glow of your own light and uniqueness.
Because the life of Jesus shows us the fullness of a journey that makes us whole, not only peak experiences. Although we are always covered by the beloved waters of God’s love, we don’t always feel it. We aren’t always at the top. So we need to carry this story like a torch, during times we are parched, burned out.
In the Hebrew Bible text Elijah passes the cloak or mantle onto Elisha, and in the Transfiguration, Jesus speaks to Elijah and Moses like colleagues, and receives their mission. We are about to enter into a 40 day period of Lent, beginning this Wednesday and ending on Easter April 1st.
We are to carry Jesus mantle, to pick up his mission and follow him into the places he will descend, into death itself. As we enter into the journey of Lent this year, and contemplate the descent into the places that squeeze us, I want to leave you with an image of a journey transformation. A clergy friend shared this image with me and I do not know the source, otherwise I’d cite it:
Take the dried out sponge. It cannot fulfill its purpose without first soaking, squeezing and then scrubbing. When the sponge is dried out, it is no use to anybody. It cannot perform its God given functions, to clean and scrub and do good works. So it is with a parched soul. When you are dried out, burnt out, depleted, tired, you cannot perform your function. You need a good soak. Like the sponge, you must soak in the warm, sudsy, bubbly waters, resting, absorbing grace and belovedness. Those mountaintop experiences. Where do you soak?
Now the sponge is saturated and warm and clean and sudsy. It feels warm and loved, has had some time to rest and adjust. But still, basking in these warm sudsy waters, the sponge is saturated and still cannot perform its function. So the sponge must have a squeeze, to become uncomfortable, and pinched, challenged. What squeezes you, makes you reflect, challenges you?
Now that the sponge is squeezed, it can finally get to work. The sponge now has the right amount of water and soap and squeezing to clean out the grime and dirt and grit. It can perform its God given function, do good works, to heal the world and itself. When the sponge has gotten to work, it certainly cannot work forever, so the cycle begins again. A nice soak is soon in order.
Where are you in this cycle of soak, squeeze and scrub? No one likes to be squeezed, but it gives us the capacity to transform ourselves and clean this world with healing love. No one can do this work of creating the Kindom of God without rest and soaking in God’s grace and love. Lent is an opportunity to assess where we are; to identify whether we need a soak, whether we are ready to be squeezed or if it is time to scrub and jump into the work our God is calling us to. Where are you on the journey?
Whether you find yourself on the mountaintop of victory and glory, or in the trenches of darkness, the shadows of death around you, this story of transfiguration reminds us that none of these stages last long, neither glory nor death and pain are indefinite, and suffering is never for it’s own sake. February will continue to compel us into some dark places, as we follow Jesus to the cross, down through the valley, through the ashes, sin and betrayal. And our journey will find resolution on Easter, where we witness the beauty God can create from these places, and the resurrection of the forces of life and love and crocuses. We carry that hope like a torch with us through the days of darkness. Let it be so, Amen

Comfort, Comfort O my people. Why would we need comfort while anticipating the Christ child? Why would part of ‘what to expect when we are expecting,’ mean that we might need to be comforted, or comfort one another?
While at the airport on Friday when traveling to Columbus Ohio to preach at a dear friend’s ordination, the gatekeepers told me the flight was overbooked, and they were sorry, but they had given my ticket away. I stayed calm at first. That can’t be—I booked this months ago. Other people had checked in before me, and they count on people to cancel, but it was a full flight, and they were sorry, I couldn’t get on the plane. “I am here in time, I have TSA pre-check, I can definitely make it to the gate I insisted!” They refused to print a ticket out, and booked me on a later flight. Still determined, with my later ticket, I breezed through security and marched to the gate to see my flight still there. I took a photo of it. I said to the person, “I have a ticket to the flight, it is still here, surely I can get on this flight.” “No, we over booked.” “That’s not my problem, I am a pastor, I need to preach at an ordination!” “We’re sorry ma’am”. “This is “blanked-up,” I surprised myself, “this system is BS you can’t just give a ticket away!” I started sweating with anger, tears of frustration welling up, “surely there is something you can do.” She handed me a piece of paper with (ahem) United Airline customer service, outsourcing her guilt to an innocent woman on the other line.
I called my friend who was about to be ordained, with disappointment in my voice, and she sang to me through her words, “comfort, comfort.” “Hang in there,” she said, “let me call you back.” And she called me back having already booked a ticket for me on Southwest- truly the best airline around. No one is paying me to say that.
Emotions run high around the holidays. Intensified joy, expectations, sadness, loss, grief. I surprised myself with colorful language and frustration that came out of me- paired with “I am a pastor!” Small things have the ability to destabilize when we have expectations about how things should be. Have you had an experience like this? Small things are symbols for larger things, for our longing about the way we want the world to look and operate. For me, I always get upset when human lives or plans are discarded because someone want to make a buck. The flight was “overbooked” to make money. I want fairness in the world. There is always something behind our hang-ups. It is never just about the small thing. We need a different kind of comfort around the holidays- we need to hear the words, “comfort, comfort.”
The prophet Isaiah presents a vision. Comfort, comfort O my people. Your time of suffering is over. God will make your paths straight, will make things fair, will bring the things you long to see into the world.
So I ask you today, What do you long for? What kind of peace do you long to see? Because of my agitation about people being discarded when corporations want to make a buck, I have experience hope since the Rev. Dr. William Barber launched a poor peoples campaigns, aimed at ending poverty, led by the poor. Have you heard about this? The leadership is from across the political spectrum, across the religious spectrum. They are seeking to re-claim the conversation about morality to make it more about how our society treats those on the margins, and less about sexual ethics. A vision of peace can bring comfort; a clear direction about where we are going and how we get there. Because we long for the world to be a different way. More loving, more fair, with less suffering and corruption and violence. We see so much we want to change; we long for something different. We desire a different vision for the world. Advent holds us in a season of longing and waiting for things to be different than they are.
Yet, we anticipate the gift of the Christ Child as bringing a promise of hope for the world of peace, abundance, freedom for all of God’s children. The gift of this child comes as a teacher or a correction or a comfort to our longings and desires for the world to look different. Because the gift of the Christ child is that God pours God’s love and power out onto creation, making the whole earth sparkle and radiate with God’s nearness, just as we are, just as it is. And we are grateful for the peace that we do have now.
Being with the tension of desire for the world to be different and grateful for what we do have is a gift of the season of Advent. We talk about Advent sometimes as waiting in the dark. The darkest time of the year, the themes of night sky, of the dark fertile soul beneath the snow that came down last night.
Joanna Macy speaks of even pain and grief being places of connection with God. “That dance with despair,” she says, “to see how we’re not called to run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or feelings of outrage or even fear. And that if we can be fearless to be with our pain– it turns, it doesn’t stay static. (It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it). But when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world. Our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.”
She reads her translation of Rilke, who trusts darkness and nights.
“In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery
at the crossroads of your senses
the meaning discovered there
And if the world shall cease to hear you
Say to the silent earth “I flow”
And to the rushing water speak, “I am”
What are you longing to see in the world and what are you grateful for now? How are you holding those two spiritual gifts in tension; longing for Christ’s presence and gratitude for what is already blossoming around you, for the way the world sparkles.
What do you long for the most right now, in your life, to see in the world? Your desire could be as simple as spending time with your family, making your flight, being more patient when things aren’t as we expect, being more present in the moment—or big life goals, writing a book, having health, or even bigger, like Israeli and Palestinian peace, decreased gun violence, more equitable systems of education. What do you long for?
Imagine today that John the Baptist stammers up here to this pulpit and comforts you with the wild wisdom in his eyes, that what you desire most is coming for you, is desiring you as well. What you long to see the world is coming to the world, through a Child, Christ Jesus. And then imagine the prophet Isaiah sings from the balcony, “comfort, comfort oh my people”—reassuring you that the vision of the world you so long to see, is surely on its way. You are making it so, with your hoping, and praying and anticipating. You may not see it in your lifetime, but it is surely coming, and we wait, and we have hope. Amen.

Delores Williams, wise womanist theologian and teacher, was my preaching professor Barbara Lundblad’s colleague when she first came to Union Seminary. Barbara remembers Delores Williams telling this story: that she grew up in the South and remembers Sunday mornings when the minister shouted out: “Who is Jesus?” The choir responded in voices loud and strong: “King of kings and Lord Almighty!” Then, little Miss Huff, in a voice so fragile and soft you could hardly hear, would sing her own answer, “Poor little Mary’s boy.” Back and forth they sang – KING OF KINGS…Poor little Mary’s boy. Delores said, “It was the Black church doing theology.” Who is Jesus? “King of Kings” cannot be the answer without seeing “poor little Mary’s boy. The images clash. One is big and powerful, the other small and poor.”(Lundblad)
Between Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent- which is next Sunday, our spiritual prep leading up to Christmas, we get an extra Sunday, and our liturgical calendar calls today Christ the King Sunday, and the United Church of Christ has that softened to Reign of Christ Sunday to avoid the male imagery of “king” But that doesn’t make much difference if we forget that Jesus is “poor little Mary’s boy.” I have re-named it Cosmic Christ Sunday, well, because I can, and because I think cosmic Christ works even better to get at the same thing in our context.
Our Advent theme this year comes from the dreams of one of our Deacons. She came to me saying, “I had a dream that I was pregnant- and I really don’t want to be pregnant, so it scared me.” She said, “I realized when I woke up, something sort of obvious; that having a baby changes everything. After three children you’d think I would know that,” she said, “but around Christmas time I always connect to the idea of the cosmic Christ coming to earth, the incarnation of love, but I never really see the literal baby. What if for Advent this year we meditate on how being plopped with a literal baby changes everything. What if we ask people if there has been an event in their lives that reoriented everything around love? “What to expect when you’re expecting Jesus!” Another deacon chimed in. Bingo.
On Christ the King Sunday, how can this baby, poor little Mary’s boy, be a King? Lundblad reminds us, “Though “king” is male, the word is important because Jesus turned that word on its head. This king is in handcuffs, standing before Pontius Pilate who has the power to condemn him to death or set him free. This Sunday honors Jesus Christ as King, but soon the religious leaders will shout, “We have no king but the emperor!” There is dissonance in claiming Christ as King.
Who is Jesus Christ? “Who do they say that I am?,” Jesus will ask his disciples in his lifetime? His identity is one of the mysteries of our faith.
Father Richard Rohr writes, “The first and cosmic incarnation of the Eternal Christ, the perfect co-inherence of matter and Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-11), happened at the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the human incarnation of that same Mystery a mere 2,000 years ago, when we were perhaps ready for this revelation. Christ is not Jesus’ last name, but the title of his historical and cosmic purpose. Jesus presents himself as the “Anointed” or Christened One who was human and divine united in one human body—as our model and exemplar. Christ is our shortcut word for “The Body of God” or “God materialized.” This Christ is much bigger and older than either Jesus of Nazareth or the Christian religion, because the Christ is whenever the material and the divine co-exist—which is always and everywhere.”
When we go to the beginning of creation, in Genesis, the human attempt to describe the beginning murmurs of creation, we notice that God did not create out of nothing, ex nihilo, but to borrow from Theologian Catherine Keller, creation ex profundus, out of the deep. The wind, and the earth and the water were already there, Tehom, a feminine noun meaning “ocean” or “the deep” messy and dark, existing just fine, existed in the beginning. Then Genesis states that Elohim, God in Hebrew, brought light, inviting these primordial forces into co-creation. We are made in the image of God, but suppose, asks philosopher John Caputo, “Suppose our corporeal being is deeply interwoven with, immersed in, these wild, watery, and windy conditions?”
So where was the Christ-consciousness in the beginning? Was Christ with God, as the Gospel of John’s hymn to the logos might have us believe; in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. Or is Christ in the deep, with Tehom, the waters of creation? Or was Christ in the mixing of these forces.
We have a lot of babies around these days: Sometimes I think baby Ruthie ought to preach the sermons, since she adamantly crawls up to the pulpit- which I love. When I think, “what is the best way to worship God, to worship the cosmic Christ, to observe creation?” I can think of no better teacher than a child who is exploring the mystery of the world with wonder.
When we baptize children, we give them the mark of entry into the Christian church universal. The third baptismal question we have is this: do you proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? What does it mean to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? When we say Jesus Christ we are making two statements of faith, one in the historical child of Nazareth who was born and walked the earth, and two, proclaiming faith in a Christ consciousness, which we all have access to. So what does it mean to make this Christ our King, or Queen, or ruler? What would it mean to have allegiance to no force above this force of love and oneness, that permeates all beings?
An Anglican priest from South Africa shared a story about what it was like to believe Jesus was King during the days of apartheid. “Our whole congregation was arrested,” he said, “for refusing to obey the government.” I thought I misheard him, but he went on to say that all 240 members of the congregation were arrested and put in jail – from babies to a 90 year old man. “At least babies and mothers were kept together,” he added. The pastor himself was imprisoned for a year. To claim that Jesus is King can be dangerous.”(Lundblad)
Allowing this Christ to be our ruler means having no earthly person above this force of cosmic love, no political person, no government, no family member, no loved one, who has our allegiance more than the cosmic Christ. What would that look like in your life? The cosmic Christ then, is the mystery of how our spirits are connected to one another and hooked into all of creation, encouraging us to act accordingly. The cosmic Christ, then, is in the mystery of how matter cannot be created or destroyed, meaning love and life cannot be consumed by death. The cosmic Christ, then is the pulse of love and awareness in all creation. The cosmic Christ existed before Jesus came to earth 2,000 years ago, and came to earth with Jesus to teach him how to become Christ, so they together, Jesus Christ, could show us a way to co-exist with one another, with uncomfortable, countercultural mercy, love, healing and justice. So let this child reign, let the cosmic Christ permeate every part of our lives, let us turn toward the true nature of our being, guided by Jesus and embodying the Christ. Let it be so, Amen.

Works Cited:
Barbara K. Lundblad, A Different Kind of King, 2012, http://day1.org/4422-on_scripturethe_bible_barbara_lundblad_a_different_kind_of_king_john_18_33__37

Here is the scene: Jesus eating at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisee’s; an academic mainstream righteously religious crew-the cultural arbiters of ‘right religion’ if you know what I mean. They were watching Jesus closely. In live time a man appeared who had ‘dropsy,’ and Jesus quizzed the Pharisees: ‘Is it legal to cure this man on the Sabbath, usually a day to do no work and no healing?’ They were silent, because usually the Pharisees were the ones quizzing Jesus. So Jesus cured the man and sent him away, saying to them: ‘If your child, or an ox fell in a well on the Sabbath, wouldn’t you reach in and save them?’ Silence again.
As people continued to pour into this leaders home, the most important people sat at the head of the table. So Jesus spoke to them about humility; ‘when you come to, say, a wedding banquet, sit in the lowest place, so the host can tell you, come in close, move to the head of the table. “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who are humbled will be exalted.”’ Jesus says.
Realizing people like the man with ‘dropsy’ weren’t even invited to this dinner, Jesus gave them more dining instructions, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your rich friends who could repay you, but invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. But you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” For this is what God would do if God were hosting a dinner party. Yet everyone respectable has an excuse about why they can’t make this dinner party.
In late October of 1957 Skip went out with a group of his 12 year old friends to make mischief on all hallows eve. That year the state built a new highway through the small town of Hamburg, Pennsylvania. So the boys went to the edge of town and dared each other to run across. Skip, being the bravest, went first, and not familiar with the speed of vehicles, ran in front of car- and was struck, his body flung like a rag doll to the side of the road.
Skip’s parents were devastated. Emergency teams did the best they could, Skip was left in a coma for 6 weeks. When he woke up, he had no speech because of severe brain damage. His legs were paralyzed. His family did the best they could to rehabilitate him- bringing him to the best hospitals, in NYC for a year, in Philadelphia for a year, and then a year at home with 24 hour care and a hospital bed in the living room. When they realized that rehabilitation was impossible, eventually Skip’s family made the heart wrenching decision to relinquish care, financially and emotionally, and to allow Skip to become a ward of the state of Pennsylvania, taken care of at the Hamburg State Hospital, with other people who were severely physically disabled, where he lived the rest of his life.
Every Sunday after church the family visited Skip. Hopeful he might return to his former self, but still encountering this new human who couldn’t communicate much. As he grew up, Skip kept the body of a 12 year old, but had the matured and disfigured face of a 20, 30, 40, 50 then 60 year old man.
I met my Uncle Skip for the first time when I was two years old. My dad plopped me down on Skip’s wheel chair tray; introducing his first child, me, to his oldest brother, Skip. As a child growing up visiting Uncle Skip in the hospital, I gripped my father’s hand tighter when we walked into the sterile building, just as my father had done every Sunday after church with his parents. We heard hooting, yelping, groaning as we walked into the ward. It felt abandoned; the outcasts of humanity fitting in nowhere but here.
Uncle Skip would light up when we saw him. I’d see the art work I sent him years before still up on his wall. We would help the nurses and aids move Skip’s body from the bed to the wheel chair. We would wheel Skip outside and my dad would sneak him an O’Doul’s non-alcoholic beer and a mild cigarette- sinful pleasures Skip would delight in.
During my last year in Seminary, my Uncle Skip passed away from pneumonia. My father and uncle asked me to officiate Skip’s funeral. The nurses and aids from the hospital who had cared for Skip and known Skip for much for much for his life came in van-fulls; they had been his family; there for him in every moment. They loved him, and saw him in a way his family never could: not the result of a tragic accident, but as a beloved child of God.
After the funeral service the nurses and aids told me in tears, “He loved Jesus so much. We never knew anyone who loved Jesus more than Skip.” They told me that when the chaplains and ministers came into the hospital and spoke about Jesus, Skip would sing, and laugh, he would emote and glow with love upon hearing the Gospel message. Perhaps the chaplains would read scripture like we read today, where Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.” Skip knew that Jesus was for him, that Jesus scooped people like him into the central seat. He loved Jesus.
After reading this scripture today, I felt called to preach about my Uncle Skip- to tell his story, to remind myself that Jesus seeks us out after what seems like tragedy, yet does not leave us where we are- but loves us into wholeness. That our God is a God of continuous life and resurrection, in moments that feel like death. That Jesus repeatedly goes to the unexpected places in society- he doesn’t hang with the cool kids, he doesn’t seek approval from the appropriate leadership- he ruffles everyone’s feathers by inviting and loving people like my Uncle Skip to the most honored seat at the banquet table.
Today I want to share a note of gratitude about this church. For being a place for me to tell a story like this of tragedy from my family. Because this isn’t a happy story in the end; it is one that tore my grandparent’s marriage and lives apart- and events like this have ripple effects throughout generations. But I believe with my whole heart, that its events like this, its people like Skip- that Jesus would heal; not by restoring to normalcy, but by shifting the narrative by saying the things and people on the margins are those who God loves centrally.
We too, as this beloved steeple-less church, living counter-culturally, a little off Main street, a church whose people are eclectic, generous, honest, full hearted, proud, humble, have a call to continue to walk with Jesus and one with another, to make the people, the places, the experiences of church that are on the margins, central. Thanks be to God. Amen.

]]>http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/julias-sermons/he-loved-jesus/feed/0867Blessing after Charlottesvillehttp://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/julias-sermons/blessing-after-charlottesville/
http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/julias-sermons/blessing-after-charlottesville/#respondSun, 13 Aug 2017 09:30:32 +0000http://www.firstchurchmiddletown.org/?p=845I am more convinced than ever after this weekend that church people are going to help save the world with love. People say the church is dying and I say good, some places need to die. But While neo-nazi’s and the KKK came bearing torches, chanting violent, hateful and exclusive slogans, church people gathered in Charlottesville Virginia singing, ‘Over my head I hear freedom in the air, over my head, I hear freedom in the air, over my head I hear freedom in the air, there must be a God somewhere.’

The church people prayed to stay grounded in Love while hate swirled around them. They prepared their souls with communal blessing and protection. The next day some of them got plowed into with a car intentionally and one of them died at the hands of the alt-right white-nationalist terrorist gathering. God have mercy, Christ have mercy.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has something to say about this, that white-supremacy is a sin and that the logic of power and domination and violence is not the logic of the Kindom of God. These powers of hate are incredibly dangerous. Yet these powers of hate do not have legs in the face of the radically inclusive love of God forged by those church people grounded in the love of Christ, not the hate of the devil disguised as Christ followers. Often racism is subtle, in micro-aggressions like “can I touch your hair” or conversations about affirmative action, and white folks, there is no denying that we carry a legacy of violence which we need the power of God to transform for us. There will be a lot of saying “I hear you, I will do better, I have learned from your experience,” rather than being defensively the good white people. And this weekend racism was overt, on purpose- a result of a flawed ideology that is an idol and is all around us.

We live in troubled times, and we only need prayer shawls in times of trouble. When we have cancer, or when we are dying, when we are depressed, when we are mourning or when we are cold. So a kind church lady wraps us in her prayers on behalf of the whole church. Wrapped in this love, we remember that Jesus tells us, do not be afraid.

On a morning when we read the beatitudes, we wonder, where do we find blessing in troubled times? What does it mean to be blessed? The logic of power and domination might say that being blessed means being exclusively white, being rich, being successful and beautiful, being violent, rising over and above others- because there is not enough blessing to go around.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims the opposite. I am not blessed because I am white, I am blessed because I am compelled by Jesus vision of the world that includes love and liberation for all people, not a select few. The God of liberation tells me that just those places that the logic of domination and power say are weaknesses, are indeed strengths and places of blessing. This God tells me that blackness is a blessing, that Jewishness is a blessing, that the experiences of immigrants are a blessing, that queerness is a blessing, that brown skin is a blessing, that there is more than enough blessing to go around, and that God has a preferential option for the poor and the oppressed, the mourning and those longing for peace.

Blessing is not dumb luck or the care-free absence of suffering. Blessing is an intentional act by God that makes sure something sacred flows out of our pain and suffering. God’s blessing is abundant, not for a few, but for all of God’s children. Church people, we carry this message and we have for thousands of years. Now is the time to carry the gift of the beatitudes, the abundance of the love of God into the world, to proclaim this good news to all the corners as we stand together in fearless Love and in solidarity. This is your spiritual DNA, should you choose to accept it.

We need to be like those church ladies who knit prayer shawls today. Wrapping those who are struggling for freedom and justice with our love and prayers. We need to make our prayers into tangible physical acts of love and justice. We need these shawls now too, because if you have a heart for the world, reality is painful. Let us turn our hearts to a blessing of these prayer shawls:

Our gracious and loving God, we now pour our blessing into these shawls. You are a God of love, who weeps when her children are suffering. We see the pain of the world, the ways a spiritual sickness has crept into the soul of our nation and world. Therefore God, we ask that you help us bless one another with your love. Jesus, help us to follow in your path, which allows us to see your vision of liberation for all people. Your love, oh God, is our identity, is our beginning and our end and we ask you today wrap us in your love, as those who wear these prayer shawls will be wrapped in our love. Send your holy spirit now into this place, and bless the hands that knit these shawls, bless those who wear them and who will wear them, bless those who are healing or are dying, and ground all of us in your abundant love and blessing. Wrap the world in the shawl of your vision, Jesus, where love overcomes fear, where love overcomes hate, where love overcomes all things. Help us to be a prayer shawl for the world, turning our heartfelt belief in your kingdom into tangible fearless acts of love. Help us to not be afraid, but to be made of the strength of your love. This we ask in the name of Jesus and the many names of God. Amen.

In the dictionary of pastoral care and counseling, burn out is described as thus, “a syndrome often occurring among individuals in helping professions, involving emotional and physical exhaustion, depersonalization, and a feeling of reduced personal accomplishment. Other symptoms include headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, lingering colds, loss of weight, sleeplessness, shortness of breath, feelings of tension and anxiety, overuse of food, coffee, or chocolate, memory loss, irritability, daydreaming, tendency to blame, withdrawal, cynicism, marital dissatisfaction, impatience, feelings of inferiority, emotional flatness, loss of interest in hobbies, preoccupation with one area of one’s life, and spiritual dryness.”

Burnout is common in non-profit work, in helping professions, in churches, in parents, in educators—the list goes on. I would wager that most of us here have felt this way at one time or another.

Jesus came so that we might have life, and that we might have it abundant! But sometimes our abundant lives overflow, become out of balance, get out of control, and we’ve got to nourish ourselves before we take on anything else. Amen?

Nourishment. This word rose to the top quickly in the work of our visioning team. To nourish ourselves and others is the first goal on our vision as a church. So that, I might add, we can nourish the world. Sometimes we are nourished by nourishing others! It is a mystery how the cycle of nourishment begins, but it never ends. Nourishment, mmm, it’s a yummy word, it’s a food word. It means we will feed ourselves and each other.

The early-church met over meals, always. The text from Acts that we have today follows the Pentecost story, which as you will learn on June 4th when we celebrate it here, is the birthday of the church, the memory of how a community continues on after Jesus has died. Christ has risen, Jesus has left us with the Holy Spirit, now what the heck do we do?
We eat together often, they concluded. Last week in our text from Luke, the followers of Jesus finally recognized him in the breaking of bread. He met them on the road to Emmaus, but they had no idea who he was, even though their hearts were burning within them. But their hearts and eyes were finally opened when he broke bread at table with them.

“In the Beginning was the Meal,” is a book by The Rev. Dr. Hal Taussig about the importance of meals to the early Jesus following communities. In Greco-Roman culture, festival meals were common, and as the Roman empire continued to colonize and break up local tribal and ethnic groups, inflict violence in the name of Pax Romana, peace, meals became a place for social experimentation, for new identity formation, for preservation of local culture, and it was in this context that the early Christians met. There was stability and structure in the meal setting, and slowly the early Christians could form their identity in subversive ways without risking the larger consequences of denouncing the roman imperial forces.
In our text from Acts, the breaking of bread, the act of eating together is mentioned twice in this short passage about what the Resurrected Jesus following community was up to. There is a deep economic equality here- it looks more like a commune. They knew the world, the empire, wouldn’t take care of the sick and the weak, the outcast. There certainly wasn’t universal health care. So this community was dedicated to taking care of anyone in need. Acts 2 says, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” They took care of each other. They physically and spiritually nourished one another.

The early-Christian community put forth a social vision of liberation, equality, healing, salvation. Not salvation, of professing the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior and being done with it, but literally salvation to save people from the death dealing forces of the world. To pool resources together and to live as one body, in contrast to the separation and division and violence in the world. At early Christian meals were comprised of diverse people, who usually did not mix, people of different ethnicities: Jews and Greek, people of different economic status: slaves and free, people of different gender identities: male and female, all reclined together, a posture usually only granted for the upper class, eating, singing, having conversation.

When it came time in traditional Greco-Roman meals, which is what the Christians pretended they were doing, to honor the Emperor, to honor the King, they would lift a glass, exchanging knowing looks- “to the King,” meaning Jesus, the one who truly comes in the name of peace. And when it came time to lift a cup to the God’s Juno or Jupiter, with a knowing look in their eyes, those gathered would lift a glass to the God of Israel, the God of liberation, who has been steadfast to an oppressed people. And the powers of the world couldn’t tell the difference. This was the form of first-century Christian worship.
Jesus was present in the breaking of the bread- which in itself was a subversive act because in other festival meals, the main blessing would happen over the meat- the piece of food that the men were in charge of, only afforded to the wealthy. But Jesus, broke bread, a common food, made by the hands of women.

In the beginning was the meal- central to the identity of Jesus-followers, and a place of resistance to the evil in the world, a place to act out a new social vision of equality and liberation from an oppressive empire. So when we break bread together, when we nourish ourselves at this table, remember these roots. That the bread was made by the hands of women, that people across difference would come together in radical equality and nourish each other, and recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. That people, burnt out from the world, broken, needing salvation, could come hungry and leave nourished. Not just because of the food, but because of the social vision, because of the human relationships that formed, because of the presence of the living Christ. Because in the brokenness of the bread people recognized their own brokenness, their own tired and hungry and burnt out bodies, desperate for the love of God, desperate for a world that looks different. And they became nourished by these meals, knowing their brokenness was not in isolation, and that a God of liberation and freedom follows them from life into death.

So we now have a new question to ask of each other! “How do you become nourished? How do you nourish others?” Perhaps we could create a nourish-o-meter. To become nourished, we need to discover the places of mal-nourishment, of hunger within us and in the world. So maybe the question is, how hungry are you, and for what?

What would it be like to truly nourish ourselves and each other? What would it be like to pool our resources and dedicate intentional time and space to healing? In a culture where insurance companies profit off of the sick, what would it be like to have a co-op of healers that come into the church once a month, and create free alternative health care? In a culture where only the elite get to be part of the wellness movement, what would it be like to bring alternative modalities of healing to the people of Middletown? What would it be like to save people from the death dealing forces in our world by eating together, by feeding people, by focusing on nourishment? What would it be like to always worship over a meal?

Today as we approach this table, know this meal as hope for the hopeless, food for the hungry, freedom for the captive, healing for the sick and nourishment for your hungry soul. Let it be so, amen.

Have you ever heard of trail magic? Trail Magic, is defined as an unexpected act of kindness, is a quintessential part of the Appalachian Trail experience for many long-distance hikers. The Appalachian Trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, ranging from Maine to Georgia, 2,200 miles.

The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus is only 7 miles long- still a long hike, perhaps what you’d do in a day if your knees and ankles and hips were up for it. I just got back from Rocky Mountain National Park, a place I escape to as often as I can, because those mountains have serious magic- they recharge me. I was only there for a couple days, Tuesday through Friday, but I noticed how kind people were on the trails- saying hello, encouraging one another, “you are almost there,” someone said, as we were huffing to the summit. When I came back to my apartment building in CT I quickly remembered that its not part of our culture here to encourage each other on the way, we don’t really even talk to each other. So I put my head back down.

Along the way on the Appalachian trail, it is rumored that magical things happen for the long distance through hikers. Little things, like finding a tent-stake when you had lost yours, or someone who is day-hiking asking if you need anything from town, or finding a couple of cold beverages in a stream, or someone whose home is near the trail offering a bowl of fresh fruit or a bed for the night. Unexpected kindness.

After Jesus died, two of the disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus, and they were in it, heated. They were grieving, and arguing, the Greek word describing their conversation lead us to believe they were preaching at each other, with such intensity. Then Jesus showed up, as a stranger. Neither of them knew it, their eyes kept them from seeing, the scripture says. He asks a prompt question, a sacred questions, that gets to the heart of their grief. “What are you discussing with each other as you walk along?”

They snap back at him; “are you the only guy around here who hasn’t heard? Jesus Christ, they might exclaim, come on guy, get with the program. Don’t you know the things that have taken place here over the last three days?”

With a simple question, Jesus stays with their grief, he asks them, “what things?” He invites them to describe what they have experienced, to process their intensity. “What things?” So they describe the things that Jesus of Nazareth did, Jesus who was a mighty prophet in word and deed before God and all the people, they say, then our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned and crucified. Sadness drips from their language. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Jesus does not just show up and walk with the disciples and join them along the way. That would be too easy. No, Jesus drives into the heart of their grief, helps them speak their truth about the pain they are feeling, and helps them make sense of it.

The disciples can begin to move from hopelessness to seeing the truth, that the Lord is risen indeed. But Jesus notices that their hearts are slow—don’t you believe all the prophets have declared? He teaches them about the scriptures, and they begin to feel a stirring within them. Still not realizing this stranger is Jesus, they ask, “will you stay with us for dinner?”

When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to them.” Their jaws dropped, because their eyes were finally opened. Over this meal, during a moment of nourishment, a familiar act, at table with a stranger, they finally saw Jesus. “The Lord has risen indeed!” Jesus stayed with them through their hopelessness until they understood the resurrection. They remembered that their hearts were burning within them as they walked along the way. This was the best trail magic in the history of time.

We transform each others lives by walking together. It is part of this churches covenant to walk together, pulled right out of the language from 1668 covenant, “we will walk with this God and one with another according to the rules of ye Gospell,” and now in our new excellent proposed mission statement, which was revealed last Sunday, walking together is front and center; “We walk together in the path of Jesus to create more good in the world by experiencing and embodying God’s love, nourishing the divine spark in all people and offering a spiritual home within and beyond our walls.”

It is no accident that our church covenant, written 350 years ago says “we walk together.” We walk with each other through life, caring for one another, not always agreeing with one another on our pace of walking or which trails to take- but still, we walk together. We are bound to one another.

We walk together through life metaphorically, journeying together, accompanying each other. The accessible to all team would remind me that not all of us get around by walking- some of us move better with walkers or wheel chairs- and we actually don’t have great space for walkers or wheel chairs in this sanctuary. Walking together then, metaphorically means making those spaces, which we plan to do.

And I believe we walk with one another after death. I believe that the rules of the Gospel maintain that we walk together with all the Saints of all time, with anyone we have loved and lost. I believe our souls continue on in some way, and that sacred spaces like this, which transcend a lifetime, connect us to people of the past, and future. I believe we walk together, and God joins us, through life and after death.

When we walk together, we don’t always know each other, at first. It is one thing to walk with friends and family, people we are comfortable with. But it is also no accident that Jesus shows up here as a stranger on the road, and teaches the disciples not only about the scriptures, but how to invite a stranger for dinner. How to accompany a stranger through the world.

When I was living in New York my church (Judson Memorial Church) developed an immigration accompaniment program while I was a community minister. “Why are we choosing this as our ministry?” I asked. The minister responded, “Jesus accompanies strangers and asks us to accompany him when he is a stranger to us.” I didn’t totally get it, until I did it one day.

We met at a McDonalds across from 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattn, and walked in through the big doors, about 9 of us and a man who was a stranger to me—we handed out postcards to other people in line, in many languages, saying, “We will walk with you, we will accompany you during this scary time. Call this number.” So we, who were citizens, would accompany strangers, who turned into friends, who happened to be immigrants, to their ICE check-ins. ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and these check-ins can be nerve wrecking, because some of our strangers-turned-friends had small criminal backgrounds, which made them more vulnerable for deportation, and they also had wives and children and jobs now- a life in New York.

As we were going up the elevator to the 9th floor, a woman got on and off the elevator pushing a cart full of sloppy files with hand written numbers on each folder. I realized each file number represented a human beings, held the fate of human lives, in a disorganized file cart. I was so transformed by this experience, even though I did nothing but stand around trying to keep my jaw from continuously dropping, I tried to provide presence and witness, but it was hard to be non-anxious. When our friend was called, the ICE officer saw that he had a slew of people watching, and the ICE officers looked twice, took it in, that this person had 9 people there with him, anxiously waiting for his fate to be determined. Our hearts burned within us. This was more than paper-work.

When we say we walk together, it means more than coming to church on Sunday. Although I would never want to diminish the importance of this hour, of this sacred gathering, I also want to claim that church happens on the road too- in the world, when we leave this sacred space. This is what it means in our vision that we want to “grow our idea of church.” What does it mean to be church, not only go to church? The vision team thought together about what it means to show up for people where they are, when they can’t come to church. Visiting home-bound people, but also heading over to the soccer field when someone has a game, and being church there. The time in this sanctuary is designed to nourish us, so that we can go out into the world and accompany strangers on the road. To create trail magic.

Howard Moody, a pastor in New York during the 70s, would say after each worship service on Sunday morning as the benediction, as the last good word, the blessing, “Go in Peace. Our real service now begins.” Our real service is the service we do in the world. On the road.

The road to Emmaus shows us that life continues beyond death, and that God meets us along the way. God journeys with us, but does more than that. God shows up with us as a stranger, meeting us exactly where we are, but never leaving us there.

Another one of my favorite benedictions goes like this, based on the words of Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881).”Life is short and we don’t have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the journey with us. So let us be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” And the blessing of God, who made us, who loves us, and who travels with us be with you now and forever. Amen.”